Evolutionary History of Sexual Differentiation Mechanism in Insects.

ABSTRACT: Alternative splicing underpins functional diversity in proteins and the complexity and diversity of eukaryotes. An example is the doublesex gene, the key transcriptional factor in arthropod sexual differentiation. doublesex is controlled by sex-specific splicing and promotes both male and female differentiation in holometabolan insects, whereas in hemimetabolan species, doublesex has sex-specific isoforms but is not required for female differentiation. How doublesex evolved to be essential for female development remains largely unknown. Here, we investigate ancestral states of doublesex using Thermobia domestica belonging to Zygentoma, the sister group of Pterygota, that is, winged insects. We find that, in T. domestica, doublesex expresses sex-specific isoforms but is only necessary for m

SUBMITTER: Chikami Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9290531 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature